Twenty years of data shows highways and bridges making progress, not crumbling

President Barack Obama’s new infrastructure plan calls for spending $40 billion on “urgent upgrades.” But a new Reason Foundation report examining 20 years of state highway data finds the condition of America’s state-controlled roads has improved in seven key areas including deficient bridges and pavement condition.

All 50 states lowered their highway fatality rates from 1989 to 2008 and 40 states reduced their percentages of deficient bridges during that time. Nationwide, the number of deficient bridges in the country fell from 37.8 percent of all bridges in 1989 to 23.7 percent in 2008.

The Reason Foundation study tracks spending per mile on state-owned roads and measures road performance in seven categories: miles of urban Interstate highways in poor pavement condition, miles of rural Interstates in poor condition, congestion on urban Interstates, deficient bridges, highway fatalities, rural primary roads in poor condition and the number of rural primary roads flagged as too narrow.

In the 20 years examined, 11 states (North Dakota, Virginia, Missouri, Nebraska, Maine, Montana, Tennessee, Kansas, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Florida) made progress in all seven categories and 37 states improved in at least five of the seven metrics.

California was the only state that failed to improve in at least three areas, making strides only in deficient bridges and fatalities. Five states-New York, Hawaii, Utah, Vermont and Mississippi-progressed in just three categories.

The Reason Foundation study finds the amount of state-controlled road mileage increased by just .6 percent from 1989 to 2008. However, spending per mile on state-administered roads grew by 60 percent, adjusted for inflation, during that time. Texas and Florida led the growth in spending, with Texas increasing its per mile spending by 174.5 percent and Florida raising its by 149.6 percent, adjusted for inflation.

The percentage of urban Interstates with poor pavement condition dropped slightly from 6.6 percent in 1989 to 5.4 percent in 2008. Two states, Nevada and Missouri made remarkable turnarounds. In 1989, nearly half of their urban Interstates were in poor condition, but by 2008 less than 2 percent were in poor condition.

The percentage of rural Interstates rated in poor condition was reduced by over two-thirds, from 6.60 percent in 1989 to 1.93 percent in 2008. However, almost all of the improvements came before 1999 and two states reported rural conditions worsening by more than five percentage points: New York and California.

“There are still plenty of problems to fix, but our roads and bridges aren’t crumbling,” said David Hartgen, lead author of the Reason Foundation report and emeritus professor of transportation at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “The overall condition of the state-controlled road system is getting better and you can actually make the case that it has never been in better shape. The key going forward is to target spending where it will do the most good.”

The report compiles data from a variety of sources, primarily from information the states themselves reported to the federal government from 1989 through 2008. The full report is here and state-by-state summaries are here. Complete data for the year 2009 will soon be available.

Spending on State-Controlled Highways

Spending on state-controlled highways increased 177 percent from $52,000 per mile in 1989 to $145,000 per mile in 2008 (in nominal dollars). Adjusted for inflation, spending per mile on state-controlled Interstates grew by 60 percent.

Spending per mile in Texas, adjusted for inflation, increased 174.5 percent from 1989 to 2008 on state-controlled roads. Four other states increased state highway spending by more than 100 percent after adjusting for inflation: Florida, Oregon, Washington and California.

After adjusting for inflation, two states-Connecticut and Delaware-decreased their spending per mile on state-controlled roads. Connecticut’s spending decreased 35.2 percent per mile and Delaware’s spending fell 22.4 percent per mile from 1989 to 2008.

Deficient Bridges

The percentage of deficient bridges in the country fell from 37.8 percent in 1989 to 23.7 percent in 2008. However, at the current rate of repair it would take over 50 years to fix all of the bridges that are deficient.

Overall, 40 states lowered the percentage of their deficient bridges from 1989 to 2008. In 1989, over half, 56.3 percent, of Mississippi’s bridges were deficient. In 2008, 24.7 percent were deficient. Nebraska went from having 55.1 percent of its bridges deficient in 1989 down to 23.6 percent in 2008.

On the other hand, the number of deficient bridges rose in 10 states: Hawaii, Alaska, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Idaho, Arizona, Utah, Ohio, South Carolina, and Oregon.

Urban Interstate Condition

Overall, the percentage of urban Interstates in poor condition across the U.S. fell slightly, from 6.6 percent in poor condition in 1989 to 5.4 percent in 2008.

Nevada and Missouri made remarkable turnarounds. In 1989, 47.8 of Nevada’s urban Interstates were in poor condition. In 2008, just 1.6 percent were poor. Missouri’s urban Interstate mileage in poor condition decreased from 46.7 percent in 1989 to 1.3 percent in 2008.

Meanwhile, seven states reported more than 10 percent of their urban Interstates in poor condition in 2008. A quarter of Hawaii’s Interstates were in poor condition in 2008. In 1989, just 4.1 percent of California’s urban Interstates were in poor condition. In 2008, that number had ballooned to 24.7 percent. Vermont went from 2.9 percent of urban Interstates in poor condition in 1989 to 17.5 percent in 2008. New Jersey, Oklahoma, New York and Louisiana are the other states with more than 10 percent of urban Interstates in poor condition.

Rural Interstate Condition

The percentage of rural Interstates rated in poor condition was reduced by over two-thirds, from 6.60 percent in 1989 to 1.93 percent in 2008. However, almost all of the improvements came before 1999.

Five states (Missouri, Rhode Island, Idaho, Nevada and Wisconsin) reduced their percentage of poor rural Interstates from over 20 percent to near zero. Two states reported rural conditions worsening by more than five percentage points from 1989 to 2008: New York and California. And just four states had more than 5 percent of rural Interstates in poor condition as of 2008: California, Alaska, New Jersey and New York.

Urban Interstate Congestion

Overall, congestion on Interstates decreased from 52.6 percent in 1989 to 48.6 percent in 2008. Between 1999 and 2008, however, the percentage of congested urban Interstates increased by 8.5 percentage points. Moreover, some of the overall reduction in congestion can certainly be attributed to the recent economic recession. Without the current recession, fewer states would have experienced reductions in congestion.

As it stands, 29 states reduced urban Interstate congestion between 1989 and 2008. Six states (Delaware, Massachusetts, Virginia, Alaska, Missouri and South Carolina) reported improvements greater than 20 percentage points. In 1989, 68.3 percent of Delaware’s urban Interstates were congested. In 2008, 24.4 percent were congested. Massachusetts’ urban Interstate congestion went from 68.5 percent in 1989 to 41.6 percent in 2008.

Eighteen states reported a worsening of urban Interstate congestion. The greatest increase in congestion, 36.2 percentage points, was in Minnesota. Kentucky, where congestion worsened 33.9 percentage points, was next. Iowa, Alabama, Idaho and Mississippi also saw urban congestion rise by more than 20 percentage points.

Fatality Rates

Between 1989 and 2008, the U.S. fatality rate improved from 2.16 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles to 1.25 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles, a drop of about 42 percent.

All 50 states lowered their highway fatality rates from 1989 to 2008, and all but three states (Oregon, Kentucky and Delaware) reported improvements from 1999 to 2008. New Mexico, Nevada and Mississippi saw the biggest decreases in fatality rates.

This week the National Safety Council reported that traffic fatalities rose in 2012 for the first time in several years.

Rural Primary Road Pavement Condition

The percentage of rural arterial roads in poor condition improved from 2.6 percent in 1989 to just 0.5 percent in 2008. Thirty-four states lowered the percentage of rural arterials in poor condition and three states (Alaska, Montana and Idaho) reduced their percentage of poor rural pavement by more than 10 percent.

Narrow Lanes on Rural Primaries

Narrow lanes on major rural roads are a key measure of sight visibility and safety. The proportion of narrow lanes on the rural primary system improved from 12.9 percent in 1993 (the earliest year of comparable data) to 9.6 percent in 2008. Hawaii, Rhode Island, Arkansas and New Jersey made the biggest improvements.

The Size of State Highway Systems

North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania and South Carolina have the largest state-administered highway systems. Hawaii, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey and Massachusetts have the smallest.

Attachments

David T. Hartgen is Emeritus Professor of Transportation Studies at UNC Charlotte. Professor Hartgen is widely known in transportation circles. He established UNC Charlotte's Center for Interdisciplinary Transportation Studies in 1989 and now teaches and conducts research in transportation policy and planning. He is the author of about 330 studies on a wide variety of topics in transportation policy and planning, is the U.S. editor of the international academic journal Transportation, and is active in professional organizations. He is a frequent media interviewee in local and national outlets. Before coming to Charlotte he directed the statistics, traffic forecasting and analysis functions of the New York State Department of Transportation and served as a Policy Analyst at the Federal Highway Administration. He holds engineering degrees from Duke University and Northwestern University. He has taught at SUNY Albany, Union College and Syracuse University and lectures widely. His studies of the comparative performance of transportation systems have received nation-wide attention. He has also recently completed a major component of Reason's Mobility Study that estimates the cost of significantly reducing road congestion nation-wide, a comprehensive study of congestion in North Carolina, and a comparative study of the 50 state highway systems . His current research includes an assessment of the economic impact of highways in South Carolina, a review of transportation performance for the provinces of Canada, a national study of business impacts of congestion, and an assessment of congestion in mid-sized cities.

M. Gregory Fields is a retired military officer with degrees from West Point, Webster University in St. Louis, and UNC Charlotte. He is enrolled in the PhD program in Urban Regional Analysis at UNC Charlotte and has participated in a number of comparative transportation studies.